Obscurity, much?/Music
As bad as Cartoon Network and its Canadian counterpart have gotten, the music industry may seem even worse when it comes to musicians falling into obscurity. *Despite them being one of the most influential bands of the 1960s, almost nobody would ever believe The Beatles had their own show. Why? It faded into obscurity when ABC got rid of it. *Almost nobody believed that Fleetwood Mac recorded a song called "Rhiannon" at the time of its release as a single, though it went on to become one of their greatest hits. *There was a rock band called Lightning Strikes- what, never heard of them? Yeah, figured you wouldn't. *There was another obscure rock band called Bitter Creek. Their only well-known song (as of 2016) is "Plastic Thunder", partly since it's often billed as part of the heavy metal movement. *The Who's performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour came close to this (and the show itself actually was fairly obscure), until Keith Moon delivered an exploding blast (really, he made his drums explode). The band itself have averted this, thanks to CSI and its spinoffs, and the band tours from time to time. *Not exactly obscure, but most classic hits stations don't bother to play "She's Not There" by The Zombies, and if a classic hits station does play it, said song usually plays between 12AM and 7AM (when the target demographic of the classic hits format is generally asleep). On the off-chance it does play before/after those times, it's usually the Santana cover. *Paper Lace. To the point where their greatest hits album only lists four songs, and their most played song on classic hits radio nowadays is "The Night Chicago Died" (which is, in fact, one of their greatest hits). *Journey, before Steve Perry became their lead singer, fell into this. Only when Steve Perry joined did the band start releasing hit after hit. In fact, their "greatest hits" albums contained nothing recorded before Perry joined. **Speaking of Steve Perry, his solo career was this, with "Oh Sherrie" being the only hit coming out of it. *The Kinks: Their output between 1965's "Kinks-Sized" and 1969's "Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)" was this in the US due to the group being banned from live shows there during that time. It wasn't until Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround (officially titled Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, despite a second part not being released) that The Kinks began riding a second wave of fame. *Speaking of the British Invasion, The Animals was this for some time until they covered the traditional folk song "The House of the Rising Sun", earning them their first #1 hit (well, at least in the US) and having Bob Dylan accused of plagiarism (ironically, Dylan's version came out first). *Today, Cream is widely regarded as influencing rock music, though it wasn't always that way. Their debut album, Fresh Cream, was very obscure in the US at the time of release; it's unknown whether its two singles released charted or not. However, the band became more widely known in the US with Disraeli Gears, and Goodbye- their final album- was released post-breakup, and reached number two in the US. *Eric Clapton's post-Cream career is pretty much a different story. A few years after Cream's breakup, Eric and a few others formed Derek and the Dominos, which fell into this until 1972, when a version of "Layla" made the charts. *The Yardbirds, which paved the way for Led Zeppelin, which would be regarded as one of the greatest rock bands of all time, started out falling into this, especially in their native UK. To the point where Roger the Engineer (Yardbirds in the UK) was their only album to make the UK album charts. Like other British Invasion bands, however, they've had more success in the US. *After The Beatles' breakup, the former Beatles went on solo careers. While some aspects of their solo careers fell into obscurity, the Fab Four's solo efforts were successful to some degree. However, even before that, there were several Beatles members whose time with the band aren't as well-known as the "Fab Four": **Pete Best's tenure as the Beatles' drummer isn't very well-known, but it isn't completely obscure, either. He did try to cash in on the Beatles' success, but he made several albums that failed to chart and became completely obscure afterward. **Stuart Sutcliffe's time with the Beatles wasn't well-known either, but like Pete Best's time with them, it wasn't completely obscure. *One-hit wonders are bound to have the rest of their work fall into obscurity, because they only had one hit during the time they were together (hence why they're called one-hit wonders). *A good reason why neoclassical music is referred to as simply "classical music" nowadays; aside from knowing about musical instruments made in Ancient Greece, nobody knows about the "classical music" before neoclassical music.